Boracic Lint Page 5

chortled with just a hint of a wheeze. ‘Just the one, his name’s Cloudesley.’

  ‘That’s a soppy name for a cat,’ the little marvel remarked.

  ‘Ho, ho, ho. He’s named after a famous Admiral, who sank his entire fleet off the Scilly Isles and drowned two thousand of his men,’ I informed him.

  ‘Well, that’s an even soppier name for an Admiral and what’s more, you’re a liar.’

  The mother cuffed the little cherub around the ear and led him off crying. Serve him shagging right, I thought and instantly felt ashamed. How quickly the milk of human kindness evaporates when you’re under multiple layers of winter clothing in temperatures only to be found in Dubai in mid-summer.

  Two visitors and neither had taken their gifts. I decided that as they’d been paid for, I would start a box of unwanted presents to give to the local children’s hospital. I emptied the water pistols out of one box and marked it accordingly with a jumbo marker.

  Eleven-o-three. In fifty-seven minutes Rowena would be off duty. I wouldn’t be able to see her today as she had important business of her father’s to attend to, but she had promised to try to swap her lunchtimes with one of the other girls so that we could have lunch together from time to time. I noticed the Tonka freak eyeing up a perfectly respectable gentleman, an aristocrat no doubt. Eventually he approached him and said a few words. Slowly the man unbuttoned his British Warm and half a dozen sets of Barbie doll underwear fell out. I applied as much pressure as possible to each of my sets of toes, as I continued to swelter.

  Then, at last, a polite child; amazingly, an American. Pop was over with the American Embassy, Mom and young Marvin III were visiting their first English Grotto. Young Marvin was certainly self-assured. He marched right up to me, shook my hand, called me ‘sir’ and complimented me on the Grotto. He asked intelligent questions about Lapland for about twenty minutes and commented on how it was great that we didn’t need to worry so much now as in the past, about the disposition of Russian troops on the Finnish border.

  ‘I guess that would make things much easier for you now, wouldn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Well, why… yes… yes, of course, Marvin,’ I spluttered.

  ‘Pity about the Middle East,’ he mused. ‘But I guess you don’t go there much anyway, do you?’ he said confidently. ‘Here is my list of Christmas presents that I’d like this year, sir.’ He presented me with a neatly typed manifest which a quick mental tally costed out at a touch over two thousand pounds.

  ‘Be sure and bring them all now, won’t you, Santa?’ his mother said with a conspiratorial wink.

  ‘You mean… all…’ I choked. She nodded her head slowly, but firmly as young Marvin organised Mrs Jones to take a photo of us all together with his Nikon digital SLR.

  ‘Well, it sure was nice meeting you, sir.’ He shook my hand again and took polite leave with the words, ‘Come along, Mother.’

  I felt as if I’d been interviewed. On Marvin’s instructions I put the disposable camera he didn’t need into the hospital box. It was then that I overheard a young boy asking his mum for an illustrated version of Robinson Crusoe priced at one pound ninety-five pee. His mum picked him up and promised it would be the first thing they’d buy once daddy got a job. The boy said, ‘Thank you, mummy,’ and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  There were two more delightfully normal children before lunch. One, a giggly little girl who chose a mini knicker-wetter as her gift. The other was a reserved little boy who wanted a camera. As gently as I could, I explained that he didn’t have the right priced ticket and that all I could give him was a water pistol. He said thank you, but couldn’t hide his disappointment as he turned to walk away.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, ‘give me the water pistol back.’ Reluctantly he held it out. I checked quickly to make sure the Tonka freak, now returned from delivering the Barbiephile into the hands of English justice, was looking the other way. I quickly swapped the water pistol for Marvin’s unwanted camera; it’s what Santa would have done. The little boy’s eyes lit up and he gave me a big hug. I’d triumphed over the system and the Tonka freak could eye me as suspiciously as he liked.

  It was a minute to one. Mrs J popped her head around the corner again and said I might as well go to lunch. Thanking her I stood up and let out an involuntary yell as my pulverised feet took my full weight for the first time in three hours. I hobbled to the staff toilet and tugged for several minutes at the boots, but they wouldn’t budge. Then a grubby little man from hardware arrived and we managed to get them off between us. He watched me suspiciously as I began to remove my layers, but I didn’t care, it was just great to feel cool again. He left as I ran a basin of lukewarm water.

  I was standing with a blissful expression on my face, gently massaging my left foot in the water when they burst in. They put me in a savage full-nelson and dragged me off to an office behind the canteen. There, the grubby little man was explaining to the Bull, whose office it was, all about this weirdo wearing make-up who was doing a striptease in the staff toilet.

  ‘It’s me, you stupid fucker,’ I said, and immediately regretted it.

  ‘What did you call me?’ the Bull asked slow and low.

  ‘No, I’m sorry, not you, him. No, look, I really am sorry. It’s me… Father Christmas.’ I laughed nervously and managed, just, to retain what would probably have been a large outgassing.

  ‘And I’m Rudolph the sodding red-nose reindeer,’ he replied, fixing me with such a malevolent stare that I swear I could feel my spine start to crumble. He circled me, slowly, menacingly, looking me up and down. I wished I’d put on clean underpants. How small can you feel?

  ‘You’ve got a wet foot,’ he observed, thrusting his face once again into mine. Razor fucking sharp, I thought, and kept it strictly to myself.

  ‘I know, I’ve been washing it… them, actually.’ And so began another tirade about shagging this and shagging that and shagging guardsmen, until, at last, one of the paranazis returned from the Gents whither he had been dispatched on a search for evidence. He was holding my belongings, a look of utter contempt on his face, at arms length. My identity proven I began to explain, but the Bull didn’t want to know. Just like Captain Shagging Dobson, I thought. I wondered if obsessive ignorance was a prerequisite for joining the army, or something lovingly nurtured during training.

  I received an official caution this time and felt myself entering a cycle of misunderstanding and barely restrained violence. I felt small, dirty, dishevelled and battered. Above all, I felt the first sparks of resentment against, not the man, who was simply doing his job, but the whole vile system that had created him and his stooges. I was just a pawn on the Harridges chess board. But there was one small glimmer of hope. As I left his office, cowering, cradling my pathetic bundle of clothes, I noticed a set of photographs pinned in neat rows on a large corkboard. I stopped and peered at them; they were mugshots of all the world’s known and wanted terrorists. The photographs were all the same size apart from two that were next to each other right in the centre of the display. They were like brothers framed by the other members of their extended family; one was bin Laden. The other? George W. Bush.

  ‘Friends of yours?’ the Bull asked straight. I didn’t answer immediately, the Bull didn’t press the question, but instead rocked very gently on the balls of his feet, observing me closely. I continued to stare for a moment longer and felt it might be my turn to start asking questions, but thought better of it. I turned and looked at him quizzically, there was no emotion on his face. But there was a look in his eye that said, ‘I’ve seen and done things you wouldn’t believe; trust me, they’re all the same and I wouldn’t piss on them if they were burning.’ There was more to him than met the eye. Slowly I backed away, turned and left the office in a crouch, but sensing that I was, perhaps, walking a little taller than I felt I was.

  By the time I’d redressed myself, minus the street clothes this time, I’
d run out of lunchtime and I returned to my throne feeling cool and refreshed, but breathless and starving. The worst of it was I hadn’t had time to order the boots from Madame Moineau. No matter, I’d do it tonight after work.

  It was delightfully cool in the store as I walked back to my throne, so cool that I was almost looking forward to the blast furnace outlet. But another mystery now awaited. The Tonka freak was wearing a thick, quilted camouflage jacket and fur-lined, black leather gloves. All the assistants were also well rugged-up. In no time at all I had the answer and hunger had become the least of my problems. As I sat down a blast of air straight from the Yukon shot down the back of the thin woollen Santa suit. In seconds I was frozen to the marrow. Mrs J popped her bobble-hatted head around the corner to explain.

  ‘It’s the new computer, see, controls the ‘eating system, see. It’s run amok, look you, switched itself to summer mode, it ‘as.’

  The heating system was now an air conditioning system running on super glacial. Real icicles had joined the plastic ones in the enchanted forest. Nobody in the store had a clue how to fix it, but some consultants, based in Sheffield, 160 miles away, had been called.

  I was shivering violently. I blew into my cupped hands and flailed my arms around. I considered stamping my feet, but put the thought right out of my mind due to the crushed toes. Visions of blackened, frostbitten limbs swirled through my mind as I huddled into the throne. I began to feel drowsy. Fight it! Fight it! What was that story? Northern Canada, yes that was it! A man dying of exposure; he feels warm, comfortable, a sense of well-being permeates his mind. Yes, sweet warmth. Ah how good it feels. No! Mustn’t sleep. Fight it… figh…

  Suddenly, I was on a tropical island, sitting by a blue lagoon under a big white sun umbrella. I was sipping a mint julep and smoking a small, aromatic cheroot. I was wearing a cool white linen suit with the red monogram SC on the breast pocket of the jacket. I had a bespoke tailored, white cotton voile shirt and a red silk tie with a prancing reindeer painted on it. On my head was a white panama with a sparkly red hatband. My eyes were hidden behind large sunglasses with red and white frames. On my feet were red lisle socks and white kid shoes which fitted perfectly. The trimmings included a white gold ring with a large ruby on my right hand and a chunky gold bracelet on my left wrist. The diamond-studded watch was by Cartier. And I didn’t say, ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ but, ‘Hi there. How is every little thing? You have a nice day now.’

  When it came to handing out gifts I didn’t ask what little Sebastian would like while grubbing about in a cardboard box marked, ‘Made in Taiwan.’ Oh no. I gave a flourish with my arm towards a small stage in the style of a circular Greek temple. Red satin curtains swished aside to reveal a deeply tanned, blond Rowena with a huge smile and perfect teeth. She was wearing the skimpiest imaginable red and white cotton bikini. Across her navel she was displaying a Tag Heuer diver’s watch worth a cool two and a half thousand quid. Oh lucky watch. To canned applause and the sound of a steel band playing a calypso version of I Wish it could be Christmas Everyday, she left the stage and walked in the most tantalisingly seductive way towards Seb. Talk about sex bomb, she was bloody nuclear. She strapped the watch to little Seb’s quivering wrist and gave him a long moist kiss on the cheek, before flashing her smile again as she stood behind me and placed her hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Wake up, Santa, wake up.’ Mrs J was shaking my shoulder violently. Her pale, sagging face wobbled with the effort